


it is not you, i see (all he said is temporary)

by teenytabris



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)
Genre: Bucky Would Be Fine Without Steve TBH But Also Endgame Sucked, Endgame fix it, M/M, Morgan Stark is a tiny darling, Natasha being soft is my favourite thing in the whole world, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Old Steve Hate Club, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 23:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30113772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenytabris/pseuds/teenytabris
Summary: “Steve, it’s okay. You wanted to be happy. Ain’t nothing wrong about that,” Bucky said, his tone soothing and calm, where his instincts railed and shrieked to accuse him. He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to hate this Steve, who left him behind. he couldn’t. It was still Steve, his Stevie.“What if it wasn’t like that? What if I wasn’t...like that?” Steve asked, and Bucky frowned at him. Steve’s face was curiously blank, and Bucky couldn’t glean a thing from it. Though, he supposed, that shouldn’t surprise him. Steve had been without him for eighty years, and before that, nearly seventy. There would be a lot that Bucky didn’t know about him any more. Maybe Steve saw this in his face, and his shoulders slumped, his hand shaking a little in Bucky’s grip. “Never mind. I suppose I’m just old now.”“Hell, Stevie, we were old twenty years ago. This ain’t nothin’ different,” Bucky said, and smiled when Steve laughed.--Endgame Fix It, based on that TFAWS trailer where Bucky looks like he skipped out on Steve's funeral to cosplay himself in Civil War.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	it is not you, i see (all he said is temporary)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Eva and PerplexinglyParadoxicalPerson on the StuckyBang server!   
> I LOVE YOU BOTH <3

Steve looked small and weary in his bed. Bucky was used to that, hell, he’d seen his Steve small and weary and sick too many times in their shared childhood. This time, however, this was an old, old man with familiar features, who still sometimes cracked glasses in his hands, sometimes bent the rails on the bed getting himself up, but was still no less old and weary.   
  
It hurt. It hurt in a way that Steve Rogers, gasping for breath in that tiny walk-up apartment, ever did. Bucky figured that was because Steve Rogers, five foot nothing and 90 pounds soaking wet, was gasping for air because of his determination to live. This one...this...well. This Steve did these things as an afterthought, on the way to death.   
  
“Sorry, Buck,” Steve chuckled, looking at the bent metal cup in his hand. “Still don’t know my own strength.” He looked soft, comforted. A little concerned, maybe, but mostly at peace. Bucky wanted to shake him. This fury, this pain that thrummed in his veins at all times, roared in his ears as Steve shakily dumped the cup on his bedside table, and settled back into his pillows, eyes shut. Bucky counted the wrinkles around them to try and calm himself.   
  
“You never did, Rogers,” Bucky said, injecting his signature drawl. Steve huffed a quiet laugh.   
  
Bucky looked over to the pictures on the drawers under the window. Steve had told him and Sam about Peggy, eventually, and maybe there were some lovely photos of them in mid-dance, Steve smiling and soft, but there was a part of Bucky that wouldn’t believe it. Could never believe it. Even if they had never said what they had meant to each other, even if they had never told each other how they felt, Bucky couldn’t believe that Steve would ever leave him behind without telling him. He could stare at the evidence with his eyes, see with them just how wrong he was, but Bucky could never see his Steve in them. Some...phantom, in his skin. Some stranger, who had taken Steve, his Steve, and replaced him, telling him that he had left behind the person he’d fought the world for, exchanging him for a life with her-  
  
And maybe a part of Bucky could believe that. Peggy was a force of nature, beautiful and fierce and proud, and Bucky wouldn’t blame anyone for sacrificing the world for her. But Steve hadn’t done that for her. He’d done that- he’d done that for Bucky. Hadn’t he?   
  
He’d spent so many nights, telling Bucky over and over and over that he would do anything for him, that he would burn the world for him, and maybe Bucky had to tell himself that Steve wouldn’t, that Steve wouldn’t really do that. That Bucky wasn’t worth that. Steve, though, in the end had done just that hadn’t he? Proven that Bucky was right. Bucky wasn’t even worth sticking around for.   
  
“You’re gonna end up looking like me, frowning like that,” said Steve’s voice, rumbling and low and aged. Bucky closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and then opened his eyes to look at Steve’s. He looked sad. He had no right to, the anger in Bucky’s veins sizzling. “Buck?”   
  
Bucky took another stabilising breath. Maybe it was old, ancient habit, but he could never rage at Steve for being happy. Even at the cost of Bucky’s own, if Steve was happy, Bucky’s instincts were ingrained against ruining it. Even if he wanted to grab that hated, aged version of Steve, his Steve, shake him and demand to know why Bucky wasn’t worth waiting for, after everything, he didn’t.   
  
“Sorry, Stevie. Just lost a bit in thought.” Steve’s hand reached out, and Bucky didn’t even think about taking it. He just did. “Never thought you’d be the one to look like this first.”   
  
“Thought it’d be us together, right?” Steve said, and there was something so unbearably him in the way his mouth quirked. Bucky’s heart ached, and he felt tears sting at his eyes. “Hey. Buck, I-”   
  
“Steve, it’s okay. You wanted to be happy. Ain’t nothing wrong about that,” Bucky said, his tone soothing and calm, where his instincts railed and shrieked to accuse him. He couldn’t. Even if he wanted to hate this Steve, who left him behind. he couldn’t. It was still Steve, his Stevie.   
  
“What if it wasn’t like that? What if I wasn’t...like that?” Steve asked, and Bucky frowned at him. Steve’s face was curiously blank, and Bucky couldn’t glean a thing from it. Though, he supposed, that shouldn’t surprise him. Steve had been without him for eighty years, and before that, nearly seventy. There would be a lot that Bucky didn’t know about him any more. Maybe Steve saw this in his face, and his shoulders slumped, his hand shaking a little in Bucky’s grip. “Never mind. I suppose I’m just old now.”   
  
“Hell, Stevie, we were old twenty years ago. This ain’t nothin’ different,” Bucky said, and smiled when Steve laughed.   
  
Someone knocked on the door, and a nurse poked her head in, smiling sadly at the two of them when Bucky looked around. “Sorry, James, visiting hours are done for now. Gotta hurry you on!” She said, and she sounded genuinely sorry. Bucky was beyond grateful for that.   
  
Bucky turned a rakish half smile on Steve, and took a kind of savage delight in the slight blush on Steve’s cheeks. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, Stevie. See you in a couple days, huh?” Bucky said, and Steve nodded, smiling fondly at him. Bucky pressed a kiss to the back of Steve’s hand, and then stood so he could kiss Steve’s forehead. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” he murmured.   
  
“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Steve replied, and he sounded so sad that Bucky wondered if there was something Steve really wanted to say to him.   
  
It didn’t stop him from waving goodbye, and heading back to the Sam’s parents place, where he’d been since that awful day by the river.   
  
\--  
  
Paul came out to sit next to Bucky at the end of the pier, and handed him a beer. “You look like a cat in a sunbeam,” he said, smiling at him.   
  
Bucky smiled back, chest expanding with how grateful he was for Sam’s family. His mother and father had taken him in without complaint, even though it had to be strange. “I feel like a cat. All I’ve done today is sleep,” Bucky joked back, accepting the beer. Paul lowered himself onto a crate, and turned his face into the sun himself. “Now who’s a cat?”  
  
“Just learning from the best, champ,” Paul replied, closing his eyes.   
  
Bucky followed his lead, and leaned back into piling behind him, stretching his legs out, and listening to the sound of the sea gently splashing against the pier. Sometimes he felt like he didn’t deserve this, peace and comfort, hadn’t earned the right to spend his days like this. Sam and Sharon keep telling him that he did, he does, but there is always the lingering fear that he was taking advantage of good people when he isn’t one. God, his therapist is going to have a field day with that.   
  
“That’s Sam’s car,” Paul said after a while, and Bucky turned his head to see that Sam had indeed just pulled up at car park near the Wilson’s private dock. “Nice surprise.”  
  
“You didn’t know he was coming?” Bucky asked, standing up when he saw Sam get out fluidly. Too fast. There was some urgency to his movements, and that set off worry.   
  
“No, but he’s a big boy. He can come and go as he wants,” Paul said, smiling calmingly at Bucky.   
  
Bucky managed a quirk of his lips, trying to feel soothed, but Sam’s power-walking practically cancelled it out. “Hey! Sam! Where’s the fire?” He called out, and Sam raised a hand in response, not rising to Bucky’s obvious joke. Bucky’s heart sank into his stomach. His mind very quickly whipped through every dire situation he could think of, from aliens to HYDRA somehow returning, to-  
  
“Hey. None of that,” Paul said, and Bucky felt his hand grip around his metal elbow. “Don’t start worrying until we know what the issue is, okay?”   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks. Thank you, Paul,” Bucky said, trying to take in a breath, be patient for the forty seconds it would take Sam to reach them.   
  
Paul stood up, and slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, giving him a gentle squeeze.   
  
Sam smiled at his dad, and Bucky could see gratitude in it. Bucky wondered if throwing up was an appropriate response to the stress that suddenly gripped his stomach.   
  
“Hey, guys,” Sam said, and reached out to hug his dad.   
  
“Hey, Sammy. Nice surprise,” Paul murmured, and Sam’s sigh was sad.   
  
“Wish it was better circumstances, dad,” he replied, and Bucky had to hold in a flinch. “Hey, Bucky. I’ve got some news.”   
  
“Where’s the fight?” Bucky said, almost automatically. Paul and Sam shared a look at that, and Bucky immediately regretted speaking.   
  
“Not a fight, buddy,” Sam said, but he didn’t sound like the actual reason was any better. In fact, now that Bucky was looking at Sam’s face, his eyes were red and puffy, and he looked dishevelled. Had Sam been crying?   
  
“Sam. What happened?” Bucky said, suddenly wanting there to be a fight. Whatever made Sam cry was clearly needing a punch to the face.   
  
“Bucky, it’s-” Sam started, and then took a deep breath, a hand scrubbing over his face. Paul reached out, gripping Sam’s shoulder. “It’s Steve.”   
  
Bucky’s brain went blank. “What is?” He replied, tonelessly.   
  
“Bucky, I am so sorry. I got the call from the home a few hours ago.” Sam’s voice was shaking. Tears were clinging to his lashes. “Steve passed away this morning. I’m so sorry, Bucky.”   
  
Bucky stared at him. “But...but I saw him. Last week. He-” Bucky looked at Paul, like he would have an explanation, but Paul just looked sad and apologetic. His hand was a warm presence on Bucky’s shoulder. There was a squeeze on his flesh hand, and Bucky looked down to see Sam’s hand enveloping his. “He- he’s not,” Bucky said, and he sounded stupid. He felt stupid.   
  
“It was quiet. I think he just knew it was his time,” Sam said, and his voice was shaky. He was holding back his own tears. Was he doing that so his grief wouldn’t affect Bucky? He shouldn’t do that. Sam shouldn’t have to comfort Bucky.   
  
“No,” Bucky said. Was he really arguing against someone dying? Like he could argue against an old man slipping away peacefully? That made sense that Steve, this Steve, would just slip away, to join his wife. His wife-   
  
“Bucky, I’m so sorry,” Sam said, and Bucky shook his head. _Stop arguing! What are you doing?_ He screamed to himself.   
  
“He must’ve just been ready to go, James. It’s just how things are sometimes,” Paul added, in a warm, understanding and gentle tone. Bucky wanted to squirm away from it. They’re trying to comfort him, trying to make him feel okay with accepting this...or even just reacting to it.   
  
“No- no, it- I- He-” Bucky didn’t even know what he was trying to say. He just- “I need to- I-” he pulled away from father and son, even though they tried to pull him back. He stumbled down the dock, like the one sip of beer he had actually affected him. Like he was going home from the dance hall, buzzed and happy, knowing that someone was at home, ready for him to slip into bed beside him; he’d complain, mumble a sleepy ‘Buck, you stink’-   
  
Bucky shook his head, trying to banish that thought. Never again. He wouldn’t get that ever again, he wasn’t stumbling home through Brooklyn streets, he was years and miles away-  
  
“Bucky! Bucky, hey, just sit down a second-” Sam’s voice, Sam’s hand on his elbow.   
  
“I’m good, I just need to- I just-” Bucky pulled his arm away, and realised that his vision was blurry. Was the serum gonna leave him to? Fine. That’s fine. Everything else he knew kept getting ripped away, why not that as well?   
  
“Bucky.” Sam sounded sad, and his hand tightened around Bucky’s elbow.   
  
“Sam, let me go, I’m fine,” Bucky said, but even he could hear the lack of emotion, the dead tone.   
  
“He left you.” Bucky stopped, and turned to stare at Sam. His eyes were full of tears, but he looked angry. Anything Bucky would’ve said died in his throat. “He left you behind.”  
  
“Sam-” Bucky’s voice was shaky.   
  
“You just got the chance to be together again, and he chose to live his life without you. He didn’t even tell you his plan,” Sam said. His other hand gripped around Bucky’s metal arm. Bucky’s entire body was shaking. He- He couldn’t hear this. He couldn’t hear Sam say the words that sat in his heart like poison.   
  
“Sam, please-”  
  
“All of those chances he had, and he picked her instead-” Sam said, and it would be that, that finally got through, wouldn’t it?   
  
He felt hot tears spill from his eyes, and felt the gasp of air that felt like suffocation. Sam’s arms were suddenly around him, firm and warm and strong. Bucky didn’t want to take even more from him. Sam had given him a home, a purpose. Was his friend where he didn’t deserve one-  
  
“No, Bucky. I’m here. I’m your friend. Let me help,” Sam said, soft and encouraging.   
  
Bucky didn’t have any more defences. He raised his hands to cling to Sam’s elbows.   
  
“He didn’t say goodbye,” Bucky whispered, and Sam just hugged him.   
  
Bucky’s knees hit the deck, his throat hoarse with painful sobs.   
  
\--  
  
They asked Sam to speak at Steve’s funeral. It made sense, the new Cap extolling the virtues of the old one. Sam had extended the offer to Bucky, but Bucky had been very quick to shoot that down. What the hell would he say? What could he say? He didn’t know the man in that coffin. Sure, maybe he could’ve said a few things about growing up with him, maybe even talked about how he’d shouldered the war effort like he could win it on his own.   
  
But he would have to leave out the way they curled into each other at night, hands and legs entwined. The kisses they stole in shadowy corners. The way whether he was small or big, he had fit to Bucky like a matched piece. Leaving that out, leaving out the truth, Bucky couldn’t do it.   
  
So, he helped Sam look handsome and professional, that his tie was straight, and then let him head off into some fancy church, filled with veterans and politicians. He did spot a few Avengers (former Avengers?) lingering around the outside, doing their best to blend in. The only people that seemed to notice Bucky lingering outside was the two people making no attempt to blend in. T’Challa and Shuri, flanked by Okoye and Nakia, walked up into the building, the crowd parting like water for them. Bucky saw them recognise him, but aside from a sedate nod from T’Challa, they made no overt greeting towards him, letting him keep his cover.   
  
He would never be able to repay them for the care they had given him for two years.   
  
Once the heavy wooden doors had closed, Bucky left, turning down random streets until he found a quiet cafe. A few people were gathered around someone’s laptop on a table, on it a stream of the funeral. Bucky headed straight for the counter, and ordered something sickeningly sweet.   
  
\--  
  
Sam texted him a few hours later, letting him know that they had left the cemetary, asking if he needed a lift home. Bucky declined, offering dinner instead the next night. Sam readily agreed, and Bucky felt safe enough stowing his phone.   
  
He then pushed through the gates of the cemetary, watching as the last few stragglers headed back down the path, and following the reverse of their direction to track down Steve’s grave.   
  
It was simple, just a standard headstone. It was only thing that Steve would’ve approved of, amid all this pomp and circumstance. He should’ve been in that New York plot, with his parents, but considering how hard Sam and Sharon had to fight just to let him have a grave and not a tourist attraction, Bucky supposed that would’ve always been out.   
  
He spent a while just reading and re-reading the inscription. Some Bible quote that Bucky didn’t know, something about kindness or strength or a plague descending from God to wipe out the nonbelievers, Bucky didn’t care. The unassuming grave, the simple headstone, those were Steve Rogers. Being in DC, the Bible quote, those were the Captain America flourishes. Put the boy in some tights, get him on a stage, let him convince you of your own patriotism.   
  
Bucky gently kicked the headstone. He felt better and worse for it.   
  
“You really did it, huh? You really got out. Got as far as you could,” Bucky said to the mound of dirt in front of it. “Can’t say I blame you. Being all strong and beautiful would’ve got you an easier life back then. You and Peg could’ve given Clark and Carol a run for their money.”   
  
Bucky stared down the grave, like Steve would somehow emerge and argue back with him. Of course he didn’t, but Bucky didn’t really expect anything more than the silence.   
  
“Whatever, Steve. You wanted something I couldn’t give you. You went after it. But you didn’t tell me. You had so many chances to tell me I wasn’t yours anymore. You spent-” Bucky closed his eyes, and turned away, nearly flinching at his own words. He took a few deep breaths, and then turned back, staring down the headstone. “You spent ten years bringing me back to myself. Making me believe that we could have what we had back. And then you do this.”   
  
Bucky tucked his hands deeper into his jacket pockets, clenching his fists.   
  
“Guess I’ll just figure out how to live without you. You clearly could do it just fine.”   
  
It felt strange to turn away and leave without saying goodbye, but Steve had done the same to him. It was justified.   
  
\--  
  
The last person Bucky was expecting to call him was Pepper Potts.   
  
When he answered his phone, and heard her voice, his entire brain shorted out, and it took Pepper asking several times if he was still there for him to get his mouth working again.  
  
“Yeah- yes, I’m here. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting...” Bucky trailed off, not really sure how to finish the sentence.   
  
“Yes, understandable,” Pepper replied, like it was her fault that Bucky was so off-put by the call. “And I’m sorry for doing this so out of the blue, but I remember someone saying you were quite good with goats?”   
  
Probably Steve. Bucky tried not to feel bitter. “Yeah, I took care of a bunch when I was- recovering.”   
  
“Recovering? Oh- Oh, right yes. After...” Pepper trailed off that time.   
  
This is the most awkward conversation of all time.   
  
“Anyway, I have a goat here, and he’s lovely, but he’s been acting...off? Not sick, just a bit odd,” Pepper said.   
  
Bucky frowned. “Not that I’m not grateful for the call, but shouldn’t you call a vet?”   
  
“I will admit that I should, but I’m still...nervous, about letting people come here. This was mine and Tony’s sanctuary, and Morgan is still so young, I can’t really- I’m unsure about letting strangers here. It’s probably a silly fear.”  
  
“No, no, I understand.” God, does he ever. He still hides in the attic when Darlene and Paul have guests of their own over. “I’d be happy to come and see if I can do anything. I don’t blame you for wanting to keep your home private.”  
  
“Thank you so much, James. Can I send a car out for you?”   
  
“That’s okay, I’ll probably just find my own way out to you. I’ll be there tomorrow.”   
  
“Excellent. Thank you again, so much,” Pepper said, and then they said goodbyes.   
  
Bucky slipped his phone back into his pocket, and headed back inside the house. Sharon looked up from her carton of fried rice, with a raised eyebrow. “You okay?” She asked, and Bucky slumped into the seat next to her.   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m just- This has been a really weird year,” he managed. Sharon leaned over to kiss his temple and he rolled his eyes at her. “Thanks.”  
  
“Any time, cupcake. Can I have the rest of your pork noodles?”   
  
Bucky swiped the carton away from Sharon’s hand. “Absolutely not.”   
  
\--  
  
Pepper’s house still remains beautiful. It’s been- months? years? decades? Since that last hateful day he was here, but at least the house itself wasn’t to blame for that. There was also the signs of change around it, wildflowers being encouraged to grow closer to the house, tidy trellises of wisteria thick winding up to the roof. There was no wisteria when Bucky had been left behind.   
  
He parked as far back from the house as he could without actually hiding the car, and walked the small distance up to the house. Pepper stepped out onto the wraparound porch, waving at him. She was smiling, soft and welcoming. Bucky didn’t know how she could do that, be so kind to him.   
  
“Hey, Pepper!” He called out, waving back.   
  
“I’ve got some coffee on, can I get you a cup?” She called back.   
  
Bucky wanted to blush. “Yeah, thanks!”  
  
“Cream? Sugar?”  
  
“Both! Thank you,” he said, mounting the steps to bring him closer to her. Pepper smiled again, and gestured for him to follow her inside. Bucky slipped his boots off at the door, seeing the tidy stand with Pepper’s shoes next to tiny, bright yellow gumboots and sneakers. No doubt belonging to the other lady of the house.   
  
“Morgan’s upstairs, she’ll no doubt come screaming down when she hears you’re here,” Pepper said, leading him into the kitchen. Bucky frowned, and looked upstairs. He didn’t remember much about Tony and Pepper’s little girl, but surely he hadn’t made a bad impression. Pepper clearly took his look as confusion, and her laugh was gentle. “She’s been reading everything she can get her hands on about your arm. She thinks it’s ‘so cool mom can you tell him he is cool I love his arm mom’.” Pepper’s tone, even if she was making fun of her daughter, was so deeply fond. Bucky found himself grinning.  
  
“I could ask Shuri to teach her about it? I know that I was pretty interested in how it worked,” Bucky offered.   
  
Pepper looked surprised, and then so terribly grateful and pleased that Bucky had to stare at his feet quickly. “Would you? She would love that. I’ve got another engineer on my hands.” Bucky didn’t know how she could say that so easily, so happily.   
  
“He’d be proud of her,” Bucky offered, and looked up when Pepper pressed a mug into his hand. Her smile was genuine, Bucky could see no lie or hidden anger in it.   
  
“He already was. And so am I. Smarts run through both sides of the family,” Pepper said gently, and Bucky could smile at that. “Tact, however, only comes through one side, and I regret Morgan seems to not have developed that yet.” Bucky choked on his sip of coffee, laughing at Pepper’s dry tone.   
  
From there, Pepper led him outside, and once he was done with his coffee, he introduced himself to the goat, who seemed mostly just restless. He checked the animal over, and made sure to keep a running commentary to Pepper what he was doing.   
  
There was then a screech from the house of, “IT’S HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!” And then a tiny, brown-haired blur slammed into Bucky’s side, even as Pepper yelled “MORGAN!”   
  
“Hello, small Stark,” Bucky said, patting the small head as she grabbed at his metal arm.   
  
“Come insiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!” She screeched, and the goat skittered away from them, letting out a bray of annoyance.   
  
“Morgan, sweetie-” Pepper tried to coax, but Morgan just kept pulling on Bucky’s arm.   
  
“He has to come inside! He’s sad!” Morgan demanded.   
  
“I’m not sad, Morgan, I’m just gonna keep seeing if your goat is okay,” Bucky soothed, and held in a laugh at the look Morgan gave him.  
  
“Not you! You’re not sad, _he_ is sad!”   
  
“Who is?” Bucky asked. He had three younger sisters, he knows all about stuffed animal mood swings and invisible friends.   
  
“Morgan!” Pepper called, warningly.   
  
“It’s okay! She’s all right, I can go see who is sad,” Bucky called, partially so he didn’t disturb the family dynamic, partially because he was actually looking forward to cooing over which ever of Morgan’s toys was sad.   
  
“No, I know what she’s trying to do, and we talked about this, Morgan. He’s not ready,” Pepper said, and Bucky immediately was lost.   
  
“He’s so sad, mommy! And Mr Bucky would make it better!” Morgan replied, stamping her foot. She wasn’t wearing shoes.   
  
Bucky was somehow even more lost.   
  
“That is his choice, sweetheart, not yours,” Pepper said, not unkindly, but definitely firmly.   
  
Morgan’s lip wobbled, and Bucky wanted to scoop her up into his arms, try and make it better, but he had lost the entire thread of the conversation, and just let himself be tugged forward by Morgan.   
  
“It’s okay, Pepper. Morgan just wants to see her friend happy,” said a voice. A very familiar voice.   
  
And then Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow, stepped out onto the porch, and Bucky’s entire world stopped.   
  
Her hair still had that last bit of blonde at the end, her red hair nearly grown all the way back out. She was barefoot, and dressed in sweatpants and a thin t-shirt. She looked well-rested, soft.   
  
Alive.  
  
“Na- Natalia?” Bucky’s voice said, before he made the conscious decision to say anything.   
  
Then Natalia’s eyes filled with tears, and she leapt over the balcony, took two long, leaping steps, and then her arms were around Bucky, and he was helpless to not respond the same, tucking her as close as he could, burying his face in her shoulder. “You were dead, they said you were dead-” he gasped.  
  
“I’m here, I promise I am,” Nat’s voice was as broken as his, and he hadn’t heard her have so much emotion since- since she was small, since he was possessed with the need to make this small spider live. Bucky held her ever tighter, trying not to break her, but knowing that she trusted him to do so. God, he’d missed her! He’d missed her so much, how could ever think that he wouldn’t-  
  
“How!? How are you here?” Bucky managed to get out, and felt her hands tighten against his jacket.   
  
“I- He rescued me. I don’t know how, but you know him. Gets an idea in his head and nothing on heaven and Earth could stop him,” Nat said, her voice nervous and trembling, and Bucky felt his heart seize with the knowledge that it had been Steve. Steve saved her. He wanted to run to DC, throw his arms around the headstone with his name and beg it for forgiveness.   
  
“Of course he did. Of course he did,” Bucky said, and managed to smile. Smile! About Steve! He couldn’t remember if he had done that since the last time he was here, at the Stark family cabin.   
  
They managed to pull apart, Bucky grinning dumbly at Nat, and wanting to laugh at a matching expression on her face. They were both wiping tears away with their thumbs, hands cupping each other’s faces, both of them giggling. Giggling. Two trained Russian assassins, giggling at each other. Bucky’s heart felt light for the first time in years.   
  
There was a third voice giggling, and Bucky looked down to see a very smug Morgan Stark-Potts. He let one hand leave Nat’s face, to ruffle that dark hair. “You’ve been taking care of my girl, Morgan?”   
  
“Mmmhmm!” Morgan said. “And-”  
  
“Morgan!” Pepper’s voice cut over whoever it was that Morgan was going to add, but then suddenly Bucky stilled. Even that slight hint was enough to make Bucky remember the conversation that brought Morgan out here in the first place. Someone was sad. Someone that Bucky would apparently help not be sad.   
  
He looked back at Nat. Her face was a sad smile. Bucky’s heart thudded.  
  
“Morgan? Who was sad?” Bucky asked, and Nat let her hands fall, and wrapped an arm around Bucky’s waist instead. Bucky looked at her, and she just squeezed him tighter.   
  
“Natasha,” Pepper sighed.   
  
“He won’t say anything, Pep. He was never going to just ‘move on’,” Nat replied.   
  
Bucky knew who they were talking about, but he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. He’d seen his _grave._  
  
Pepper sighed, and there was a tired, knowing look on her face. “Bucky, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to trick you. And I did want to have someone tell me how to help a restless goat.”   
  
“Trick me.” Bucky continued to just stare at Morgan’s head and blink dumbly. Being detatched from the situation would do far better for his mental state.   
  
“Come on. Let’s get you inside,” Nat said gently, and Bucky was putty in her hands. She just had to point him towards the steps and pull him tighter to her side, and Bucky drifted along beside her, his head empty. What was that thing Sharon sent him? It was a picture of a frog, and underneath she had written ‘no thoughts head empty’. The frog looked happy. Was he happy? He couldn’t feel much more than just what TV static looked like.   
  
Morgan tore off ahead, holding the door open for Bucky and Nat, and then was immediately off again, a blur as she went upstairs. Nat directed Bucky to a large, comfortable sofa, and settled him on it. Her arm stayed around him the whole time, and despite the fact that she was the one returned from the dead this time, Bucky could not help but feel like she was the only steady thing in the world.   
  
He could hear Pepper turning the kettle on in the kitchen, and a few cupboards being open and closed.   
  
He could hear two sets of footsteps on the stairs. Two. One small, one bigger.   
  
“Come on!” Morgan’s insistent voice said.   
  
Someone replied. It was too quiet, someone who knew that there was someone enhanced in the next room, that their words could be heard. Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to pass out or vomit more.   
  
“No! You are sad, and mommy says that when you are sad you go find what it is and you stop it!” Morgan demanded, and Bucky couldn’t hear what the other voice said in reply, and then those two sets of footsteps were walking down the remaining steps, and stopping behind him and Nat.   
  
Nat turned around to look at Morgan and - whoever - and her face was a knowing smirk. Bucky wanted to laugh at that expression, that was one he knew well. One he even loved.   
  
Someone cleared their throat, but Bucky heard a strain on it that he remembered. Like someone who coughed when they used too much breath for it. It was so incongruous to the Steve he remembered from now, that Bucky turned around without meaning too.   
  
Morgan stood there, grinning triumphantly, her tiny hand in a much bigger one.   
  
But those big hands didn’t match the thin wrists they were attached to. When Bucky followed those thin wrists up, into an arm, elbow, shoulder, the bones were bird-like and the body was drowning in clothes that must’ve belonged to Pepper or Nat.   
  
Steve Rogers stood there, five-foot-two, one hundred pounds soaking wet, with slight lines on his face. Crow’s feet. Smile lines. A permanent burrow between his eyes. He looked horrifically guilty, and so terribly sad. His shoulders slumped with the weight of the world.   
  
“Hi, Buck,” his voice said. Deep and miserable.   
  
His eyes were so fucking blue.   
  
“H- how? How?” Bucky’s voice was barely above a whisper.   
  
Steve’s shoulders slumped further, if it was even possible. “Couldn’t leave without getting Nat, and the Red Skull was being a real fuck about it,” he said, his free hand flexing against his thigh.   
  
There was too much to unpack in that sentence.   
  
“Red Skull? What?” Bucky’s voice somehow sounded more strangled.   
  
Steve’s lips lifted in a weird part-smile-part-grimace. “He’s the Soul Stone guardian.”   
  
Like that cleared anything up.   
  
“What?”   
  
“Long story short, Nazi man can give a stone of power that meant we could get you guys back,” Nat said, and gently squeezed Bucky. “But you gotta give something up. I gave up me.”   
  
Bucky managed to tear his eyes from Steve to glare at Nat. “What?”   
  
Nat shrugged. “Everyone else got to make a sacrifice play, why not me?”   
  
Bucky made a mental note to yell at her later, but looked back at Steve- _his_ Steve. “So you-”  
  
“-gave up everything. Except my life, you would be the first to know that I don’t particularly care about that,” Steve said, and Bucky got he was trying to make a joke, but considering there was a grave in Washington DC with his name on it, that Bucky had seen fresh grave dirt over, and he had sat next Steve Rogers as he slowly decayed in a aged care home-  
  
Bucky was moving before he realised, and with a hand on Steve’s protruding collarbones, he backed him into a wall. He towered over him, and Steve seemed to accept that this was happening. He didn’t even look scared. He looked like he had been expecting this, and Bucky was entirely irrationally angry.   
  
“Fuck you, pal, I spent a good fuckin’ twenty years caring about your life, you don’t get to make a fuckin’ joke about not caring! I fuckin’ care! I watched your old ass _wither and die_ in front of me! I saw you every week, watched you wait for death like it didn’t fucking _matter_! I watched you leave me behind in _real fucking time,_ don’t you dare- don’t you fuckin’ even think to-” Bucky was seeing red, his entire world was red and angry and even seeing Steve’s eyes become wider and sadder with every word he said didn’t stop him. He couldn’t stop.   
  
“How are you here!? I went to your fucking _grave_. I stood next to it and walked away- and you have- you have the audacity, you fucking-” And then, like a puppet with no strings, Bucky fell to his knees. He felt Steve try and hold him up, and if the man had a lick of sense he would remember he wasn’t a meat slab anymore, he was fine-boned and china. Bucky, mostly out of well-learned instinct, leaned away from him, he wasn’t going to be the reason for Steve to get hurt. Even with everything that had happened, he would never let himself hurt Steve.   
  
“Buck! Buck, hey-” Steve’s hands were smooth as they cupped his face, no callouses. He had the most ridiculous hands. God, Bucky loved them. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who that was, who it was that tricked you, I swear. I don’t know who it was you buried, but this is me. I’m Steve, I’m the Steve who stepped on that platform, I swear to God. Buck,” Steve said, and his voice was rumbly and deep and so familiar that Bucky couldn’t help but cry. Pathetic. “No. No, Buck-” Bucky felt soft lips just under his eyes. Steve’s lips, Steve kissing his tears away.   
  
“Steve?” Bucky’s hands found small, bony shoulders. “Steve?”  
  
“It’s me, Buck. I swear. I’ll spend every day I have left proving it, if you need me to,” Steve said, promise as thick on his tongue as that beloved Brooklyn accent.   
  
“Steve,” Bucky said. What was the point of saying anything else?  
  
“Bucky,” Steve replied, pressing their foreheads together. His skin was cold. He was cold. Bucky pulled him close, close, close.   
  
“Steve. You’re cold,” Bucky said, like Steve didn’t know.   
  
“Always used to be cold, didn’t I?” Steve murmured, and Bucky pressed his nose into Steve’s cheek.   
  
“Used to stick feet like ice right into my stomach,” Bucky said, and Steve chuckled, low and lovely.   
  
“You used to squeal like a girl,” he murmured right back.   
  
“I buried you,” Bucky said, voice catching on a sob.   
  
Steve kissed him, and despite the tremble, and the cold, Bucky would not change it for anything. “No fucking grave would hold me down. I’d find a way back to you.”   
  
Bucky thought, you did, and pulled Steve back into him, his metal hand spread on a spine that curved.


End file.
